Nier Automata OST

As I've been going through and listening to the soundtracks I picked up this summer, I've been meaning to make some posts about them, and the fact that we apparently never had a thread about this one means it is absolutely first. I played Nier Automata in the spring shortly after it came out and while it didn't dethrone Breath of the Wild as my favorite game of the year (holy crap 2017 is going to go down as one of gaming's greatest years), I absolutely adored just about every aspect of it including the soundtrack!

One of my biggest regrets for VGM purchasing this year is that I managed to think to myself "Hey you never preordered the Automata soundtrack from Amazon.co.jp! You should do that" and didn't realize I was ONE DAY TOO LATE. Which means NO BONUS DISC. So I ended up having to wait longer than I wanted and had a kind and lovely friend get me a copy from Yahoo Auctions that included the fourth disc of 8 bit tracks. More on that in a bit.

I've listened to the whole set over and over and over again and have yet to get tired of it. Well, with one exception... the ending song occurring many times in different languages keeps getting skipped, but at least they put each version on a different disc unlike the first game's OST where all the variations of a single theme were crammed next to each other for the album.

A few highlights for me:

Disc 1:5. Birth of a Wish - grew on me after its initial use in a short trailer for the game, and even better after having played the game. BECOME AS GODS: https://youtu.be/z49X4rpxdQE

7. Amusement Park - everyone else I've talked to seems to think this is one of the OST's best tracks, and I do like it a lot, it doesn't stand out among other greatness present that much for me: https://youtu.be/HE45hrWGC3Y

Disc 2 (I think my favorite of the three discs - it's the one I keep putting on while doing stuff for work):3. End of the Unknown - very electronic and different from the rest of either Nier OST, but it reminds me a bit of some of the music in Drakengard 3, as I recall: https://youtu.be/x6xEcxvEFTE

5. Pascal - I could go on and on about Yoko Taro's emotionally manipulative writing and how it relates to the character of Pascal and the village of robot children, but it would get spoilery and that's not my intent here. This music is perfect for the place it's used in the game, though: https://youtu.be/T_KaXLe-NPs

7. Dark Colossus - Kaiju - arrangement of The Dark Colossus Destroys All from the first game. I loved that version, and I love this version. https://youtu.be/Pu9qhbNqgl8

8. Copied City - Oh holy crap this track. I don't know why, but it's one of the most memorable pieces of music in the whole soundtrack. It manages to be both beautiful and REALLY REALLY unsettling. One of the most perfect pieces of music for "WTF IS GOING TO HAPPEN" in any game, ever. I mean, in my opinion of course. https://youtu.be/sFyuf7-VRUA

Disc 3:11. Alien Manifestation - the vocal in this reminds me of the style of the vocals from Panzer Dragoon Saga and Orta, and I know a lot of people really dislike that sound. But I don't! https://youtu.be/GNCsBuYaIhQ

Honestly I could have linked the vast majority of the tracks from this set. As I was going through a Youtube playlist finding the names of a few of the specific tracks I wanted I just kept going "BUT THIS IS GREAT, TOO." Overall a very, very strong soundtrack. I was a bit wary going in after liking but not loving Drakengard 3's music, but everything came together beautifully here both as a game and a soundtrack. The bonus disc is a really fun listen as well - it's 8 bit versions of many of the themes from the rest of the soundtrack used in the game's "hacking" sequences. Again, avoiding spoilers, but I really liked the character that is focused around, and that adds an extra oomph to my like of the disc.

Would love to hear what others ended up thinking of Nier Automata, especially because I know a number of you were fans of the original game's music (how was that SEVEN YEARS AGO???).